Wednesday, May 12, 2010

The Seed Cathedral - British Shanghai Expo Pavilion

Whether it actually "works" or not as a piece of architecture, visually I think this looks just fantastic. (Plenty more here and here). I also like the combined concepts of "seed cathedral" and "blur building"

"The Seed Cathedral is 20 meters tall and is formed from 60,000 slender transparent fiber optic rods. Each fiber optic rod is 7.5 meters long and encloses one or more seeds at its tip. During the day, they draw daylight inwards to illuminate the interior. At night, light sources inside each rod allowing the entire structure to glow. When the wind blows the optic “hairs” gently move as they create a dynamic effect for the viewers. Inside the darkened inner chamber of the Seed Cathedral” the tips of the fiber optic filaments form an apparently hovering galaxy of slim vitrines containing a vast array of embedded seeds.”

Traces

"The Muse of photography is not one of Memory's daughters, but Memory herself." John Berger

"The photograph isn't what was photographed. It's something else. It's a new fact." Gary Winogrand

"The basic material of photographs is not intrinsically beautiful. It’s not like ivory or tapestry or bronze or oil on canvas. You’re not supposed to look at the thing, you’re supposed to look through it. It’s a window.” John Szarkowski